Garden Tool: The Dibble

A pointed gardening implement used to make holes in soil, especially for planting bulbs or seedlings.

antique dibbles from janeaustensworld.wordpress.com

It’s an old-fashioned tool meant to make planting easier by creating holes in the soil. Nothing fancy – I’ve used a broom handle and the handle of a hand shovel.

However, now you can dibble and space your seeds at the same time with a dibble board. Lots of options here. You can buy one that can be customized by removing pegs to match your square foot gardening needs.

Or make a template for each of the planting options in your square foot garden. Need 3″ spacing? cut a piece of cardboard into a 12″ square and mark for holes that are spaced 3″ apart.

Two inch spacing can be achieved by cutting the very bottom off an egg carton. Press that into the soil, drop a seed in each egg cup, remove and cover with dirt.

An easy way to make custom dibble boards that will last longer than cardboard and egg cartons is to cut squares out of plywood for each spacing option (2 plants per square foot, etc.). Hammer nails on the board at the correct spacing and then glue wine corks on the nails.

Or glue 1/2″ washers to screws to enlarge the head (dibble hole) and screw into boards. I’d recommend dimensions of the board be 1″ or 6″, even if you’re not a square foot gardening – one day you might be.